


Love, Bunny

by mikkimouse



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, I do so love tormenting Ben with these two dopes, Language, M/M, Trope Bingo Round 14, Valentine's Day, White Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:41:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23150347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkimouse/pseuds/mikkimouse
Summary: Barnaby gets a mysterious cake on Valentine's Day, and goes about finding the best way to respond.
Relationships: Barnaby "Bunny" Brooks Jr./Kaburagi T. Kotetsu
Comments: 17
Kudos: 135
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	Love, Bunny

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for the Language/Translation square on my [Trope Bingo board](https://mad-madam-m.dreamwidth.org/17415.html). And with that, I've got at least one fic in each line on the board! Eleven down, fourteen to go...
> 
> Thank you to [Kalira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalira/) for answering my questions about both White Day and Japanese. All remaining mistakes are my own.

_February 14_

There was a chocolate cake in Barnaby's mail. 

He didn't see it at first. With Valentine's Day, he'd been inundated with so many cards and gifts and packages that the mailman had started just bringing a cart up to his apartment rather than leaving them downstairs at the mailboxes. It was easy to miss one red box in the deluge. 

Barnaby came across it that night, as he was sorting through everything, and paused when he did. First, there was no postage on it, simply his name in a hasty scrawl, with a black scribble before the "Barnaby" as though something else had been written there and marked out. Second, there was no card or return address or any other indication where it had come from. Strange, but not terribly suspicious. 

He opened it and found a homemade chocolate cake as the only thing inside, unadorned except for a few lines of Japanese kanji. Or...no, hiragana, specifically, he thought it was called. Or katakana? He was still learning; he got the two confused. 

But no, there _was_ a line of kanji on the cake, just four characters on the right side, with a T between them. 

Literally, they were the only four characters Barnaby recognized, because when he'd decided to start learning Japanese, he'd decided the first thing he needed to memorize was what, exactly, Kotetsu's name was in kanji. 

The cake was from Kotetsu. 

And he'd written on it _entirely_ in a language he thought Barnaby didn't know. 

Which, well...Barnaby _didn't_ ; he'd only started learning a few months ago and Japanese was a hell of a lot harder than any of the other languages he'd studied. He could pick out a few of the characters in the message, but not enough of them to have any idea what it said. 

Barnaby snapped a photo of the cake, carefully leaving out Kotetsu's name, and texted Origami. 

**To: Origami Cyclone**  
_Do you know Japanese well enough to translate a short message?_

**From: Origami Cyclone**  
_I might, but I'm still learning. Why don't you ask Tiger?_

**To: Origami Cyclone**  
_He's not answering right now. Would you mind?_

**From: Origami Cyclone**  
_Sure, I'll try my best._

Barnaby sent him the picture and waited. A few moments later, Origami texted back. 

**From: Origami Cyclone**  
_It says "Be my Valentine, Bunny-chan?"_

Barnaby's face heated. There was no way Origami didn't know who the message was from now; he hadn't even considered Kotetsu might have put his nickname in it. 

He texted back a quick _thank you_ and took the cake into the kitchen to get it out of the box and into something where it might last more than a day or two. He'd go through the rest of his mail later.

When he got back to his desk, there were more new messages on his phone.

**From: Origami Cyclone**  
_I'm glad I could help._  
_It's a tradition in Japan for people to confess with chocolate on Valentine's Day._  
_You should look up White Day. It's in March._

Barnaby frowned at the non sequitur, but turned to his computer and searched. The very first result informed him that White Day was a holiday exactly one month after Valentine's Day, where a person who'd received a Valentine's chocolate could return the favor. 

Hm. 

**To: Origami Cyclone**  
_Thank you for your help._

***

The thing was, Barnaby would have said yes immediately, had Kotetsu asked him in any other way. He'd been in love with Kotetsu for years at this point; the largest thing holding him back was that he'd had no idea if Kotetsu returned his feelings, or if Kotetsu even _wanted_ that again with anyone. Where they were was good enough; Barnaby had no desire to force the issue. 

But Kotetsu had snuck a cake into his mail with no sign of who it was from, with a message he knew Barnaby couldn't read without help. Maybe he'd hoped Barnaby would assume it was from a random fan and discard it without reading the message. Or maybe...

Barnaby swiped back to the picture as he ate the last piece of cake. Maybe Kotetsu hadn't been able to think of another way to ask. He _did_ operate under the ridiculous idea that Barnaby was better off without him, so there was a chance he'd done it this way to sabotage the entire thing before they could even get it off the ground. 

Or maybe he was relying on Barnaby to do what they'd learned to do with each other long ago: to read between the lines and hear what wasn't said. 

Barnaby exited out of his phone's gallery and opened up a browser to look for white cake recipes.

***

_March 14_

Barnaby got to work early and set the cake box on Kotetsu's desk, and then went to get a cup of coffee. He was nervous enough that he didn't need the caffeine—his fingertips faintly buzzed with anticipation—but he needed to do something other than sit at his desk and jerk at every sound while he waited for Kotetsu to arrive. 

He dearly hoped he hadn't misread the message. Not that there was much to misread, but...

Barnaby walked back to his desk; Kotetsu still wasn't in. He was disappointed for all of five seconds when the door burst open and Kotetsu scrambled through. "Sorry! Sorry, there were three different wrecks and I—eh? What's that?" 

It required every bit of self-control Barnaby had to continue sipping his coffee without looking over his shoulder. "At least you made it. What's what?" 

Kotetsu was staring down at the box on his desk and didn't seem to have heard a word Barnaby had said. He touched the top of the box gently, like he was worried it would fade away if he did. "What's this?" 

His voice had taken on a different tone, reverent and wondering. Barnaby hadn't expected that, and now he was second-guessing this entire thing. 

"Since it's on your desk, it appears to be for you," he said. 

"Hey, I know that!" Kotetsu sounded more like his usual self with the outburst. "It's just...my family's the only ones who write my name like this. But they wouldn't have...there's not a reason..."

_Ah_. Barnaby had gone back and forth with what to do, and had ultimately decided since Kotetsu had confessed in Japanese, he would respond in kind. And that meant writing Kotetsu's name in kanji on the box.

At least he knew he'd gotten it right. 

Kotetsu lifted the lid of the box, and Barnaby sipped his coffee and aggressively pretended he wasn't watching like a hawk for his reaction. 

There wasn't one. 

Kotetsu didn't say anything. He didn't move or blink or even breathe, from what Barnaby could see. He just stared, presumably at the cake, with an utterly blank look on his face that Barnaby couldn't decipher. 

Oh, hell. He _had_ misread somewhere. Barnaby set his coffee aside and stood to apologize, before he went elsewhere to have his own breakdown. "Ko—" 

Kotetsu grabbed him by the jacket and kissed him like he was pouring _years_ of pent-up longing into it, hard enough that Barnaby stumbled backward and landed against his own desk. Something clattered behind him and the desk itself rocked worryingly, but Kotetsu was pressed against him and _still_ kissing him and—

Barnaby wrapped his arms around Kotetsu's waist and kissed him back with everything _he_ felt, every moment of love and adoration that he'd repressed for ages making its way out, and he never, ever wanted to stop. 

"Hey, guys, I— _whoa!_ "

Barnaby jerked at the new voice; Kotetsu jumped out of his arms and a full three feet away, like that would somehow erase the fact that they'd been making out in the office. Ben was standing in the door, holding a folder in front of his face. 

"Uh," Kotetsu said. "It wasn't what it looked like!" 

Ben half-lowered the folder to gape at him incredulously. "I would _love_ to hear that explanation." 

Kotetsu looked panicked. "I—Well—" 

Barnaby took off his glasses to clean them on his shirt. His face might actually have been on fire, given how hot it felt. "It was exactly what it looked like," he said, with a sharp look at Kotetsu. "Our apologies, Ben. It won't happen again." 

Kotetsu shoved his hands in his pockets and gave Ben a sheepish smile. "Er, yeah, sorry." 

"Good to hear." Ben glanced between them again. "I'll just...let you two have another five minutes." He checked his watch. "Maybe ten, to be safe." 

With that, he backed out of the room, muttering something under his breath that Barnaby didn't quite catch. 

They stood in silence for another moment after Ben left, a few feet apart, as Barnaby tried to sort out what had just happened. 

Kotetsu rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, sorry about that, Bunny. I got a little carried away." 

Barnaby put his glasses back on. "A little?" 

"I didn't know you knew Japanese," Kotetsu said quietly. 

Barnaby cleared his throat and focused on the wall behind Kotetsu. His face was burning again, but for a different reason this time. "I've only been learning for a few months." 

"You never said anything." 

"I wanted to wait until I was a little better at it," Barnaby said, and then admitted, "I wanted to surprise you." 

Kotetsu laughed and scrubbed his hands over his face. "You sure as hell surprised me." He looked over at Barnaby, and his eyes were suspiciously bright. "You can write my name?" 

Barnaby glanced at the box. "It was the first thing I learned how to write."

Kotetsu blinked at him. "Oh." 

"I'm not sure how I did with the rest," Barnaby gestured at the cake, "as I'm not fluent and trying to write the proper characters with icing wasn't—" 

Kotetsu stepped back into his space and cupped his cheek. "It's okay. I'm pretty sure I got what you meant." 

Barnaby settled his hands at Kotetsu's waist once again, more aware that they were still in a public setting but somehow unable to make himself care too much, not when Kotetsu was smiling at him like that. "Only pretty sure?" 

"Well, what did you want to say?" Kotetsu asked. 

Barnaby shouldn't have been nervous. He was literally holding Kotetsu in his arms and they were standing close enough to kiss; they _had_ been kissing just minutes before. But somehow the idea of saying the words aloud, rather than safely removed by a cake and a different language, had his voice failing him. 

He took the plunge anyway. "The message is supposed to say, 'I'll be yours if you'll be mine.'"

Kotetsu grinned. "Well, you got that part. But I thought there was one more line." 

Barnaby narrowed his eyes. "A closing and signature don't count as part of the message." 

That did absolutely nothing to dim Kotetsu's grin. "Oh, I think they do. And I think they said 'lo—" 

It occurred to Barnaby that he could kiss Kotetsu to shut him up, and so he did. It got the point across just as well as what he'd written on the cake. 

_I'll be yours if you'll be mine._

_Love, Bunny_

**Author's Note:**

> It's still March 14 in my timezone so WOO, I finally got a White Day fic written for these two! Took me long enough. XD
> 
> Come see me on:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/mad_madam_m)  
> [Tumblr](https://mad-madam-m.tumblr.com/)  
> [Dreamwidth](https://mad-madam-m.dreamwidth.org/)  
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